Morley Ballantine

Firm believers in lifetime learning, Morley Ballantine and her husband, Arthur, with their for small children, came to Colorado in 1952 to publish the Durango Herald.

In 1964, the Ballantines contributed $10,000 to start the Center for Southwest Studies at Fort Lewis College. Today the Center is headquartered ina $7,500,000 one-year-old building, built by both state funds and those from the private sector. Over the past 35 years the Ballantine family has contributed more than $500,000 to fund the center which is used as a repository for artifacts, resource materials, books, records and documents about the southwest as well as a teaching site.

After Arthur Ballantine’s death in 1975, the eldest Ballantine child, Richard, became publisher. Today the Cortez Journal, Delores Star, Mancos Times, webdurango.com, a magazine called Inside/Outside and several other publications are a part of the output.

Ballantine has served on a variety of local boards and legislative committees, and was an early member of both the Colorado Forum and the Women’s Foundation. She is a trustee of two family foundations, director of Durango’s First National Bank, and continues as a trustee emerita of Fountain Valley School in Colorado Springs. Ballantine continues to serve as the editor of the Durango Herald.